By SOLOMON KANTHA
PAPUA New Guineans are making their mark in various fields and one such person in the field of science and research is Muse Opiang.
Muse 33, comes from Hongo-Yakop village in the Kabwum district of Morobe province. He attended Kalalo community school, Wasu high school, and the University of PNG from 1992 to 1996 and did his Honors degree in 2002 studying the long-beak echidna for his major project.
I began to understand and appreciate Muse’s research work after a presentation he gave in Washington DC to representatives of the U.S. State Department which had offered Muse a scholarship under the East-West Center education program to study for his Masters degree at the University of Missouri in St. Louis.
What makes Muse unique is that he is supposedly the only person that has been able to capture, radio-track and study the long-beak echidna - an endangered egg-laying mammal only found on the island of New Guinea which includes PNG and West Papua.
This apparently makes him a world expert on the long-beak echidna.
There are two species of echidna - the short-beak and the long-beak echidna. The short-beak echidna can be found in numerous places including PNG and Australia.
The long-beak echidna, found only on the island of New Guinea has been very difficult to capture and study as they are very rare.
The last recorded specimen of the long-beak echidna caught was in 1907 and is kept at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. The oldest specimen recorded was in 1892 in West Papua, Indonesia. Currently there are 86 specimen of long-beak echidna in the world.
When Muse completed his studies at UPNG he joined the Research and Conservation Foundation (RCF), a local NGO, as a field research officer. Whilst there he saw that a lot of expatriate researchers were coming and going, prompting him to ask why Papua New Guineans were unable to do these researches.
Whilst at UPNG Muse received capacity building training offered by the Wildlife Conservation Society PNG program (WCS-PNG) usually offered to third and fourth year science students at UPNG to develop their research skills.
After the training Muse wondered what he would doing, when he read in a scientific journal that it is quite difficult to study the long-beak echidna because it is very difficult to find and track them because of their rarity.
This inspired Muse to take on the onerous challenge of studying the long-beak echidna for his Honours degree project. But first he had to capture one.
Professor Tim Flannery, an expert in New Guinea mammals spent more than 20 years collecting mammals and saw only one live specimen of the long-beak echidna in the wild.
That motivated Muse and he began to ask locals at Haia in the Chimbu province about the long-beak echidna as that is where they are still spotted and unfortunately hunted for their tasty meat.
Haia has no basic services and the only help they get is from mission assistance and funding from research projects that recruit locals as guides.
Through the echidna research project Muse built a research station at Haia where all sleep fees, guest house fees and ground fees go to the landowners.
This is the only source of income for the Haia people. Muse wants to continue to support the Haia people in getting more research projects into their area.
“I would like to see more Papua New Guineans doing research in ecology and conservation. We can serve the very remote community through research where government services are lacking. Conservation is not only for “saving the wildlife” but also “serving the community”,” says Muse.
Muse received the first funding for his research project from the WCS (PNG Program) and ventured out into the mountain ranges of Haia to prove that he can capture a long-beak echidna as the world expert Prof. Tim Flannery said that it is very difficult and almost impossible. His wife Sandie resigned from her job to assist him with his research in the rural Haia together with their infant son Tackie.
From 2001 to 2003 Muse did his preliminary research work trying to track the long-beak echidna.
In 2004 he began to master the techniques to track them and attached transmitters to the echidnas’ legs. With the assistance of locals he managed to capture not one but the first six long-beak echidna. His Honours research paper was based on the techniques to capture and radio-track them which will enable scientists to study their natural history.
It is difficult to find out the echidna’s sex because all their sex organs are internal. After Muse’s study the sex of the adult echidna can be determined by palpating them.
“It is okay to determine the adult echidna’s sex using their spur but that is not the proper way. The proper way is to palpate the pouch to feel for the penis for adult echidnas”, says Muse. The echidnas’ snout can determine electric current. They are the only mammal with electoral receptors that enables them to look for food such as worms.
After Muse’s study in 2004 it is now possible to track the long-beak echidna to investigate their breeding season, home range size and locate their den sites.
“They are very sensitive to humans and one must know when and how to find them. Not much is known about their food ecology such as larvae, insects, grubs, and earth worms,” says Muse.
Muse’s goal is to learn as much as possible about the long-beak echidna and that is where his Masters degree is focused on studying their natural history and ecology.
“I would like to continue on with a PhD in studying the systematics and biogeography of the long-beak echidna,” says Muse.
Muse is the only person to successfully capture, radio-track and study the long-beak echidna in PNG.
With the funding of the U.S. State Department under the United-States South Pacific Scholarship Program he did an internship from May to July in 2007 at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History under the supervision of Dr. Don Wilson, a world expert on mammals.
Through his successful research on the long-beak echidna Muse was able to give a presentation at the American Society of Mammalogy and also gave presentations at other international scientific conferences in the United States.
Muse said the long-beak echidna is a protected species in PNG but enforcement has been very lax in protecting them and most rural villagers continue to hunt them.
“There needs to be more conservation teaching in both rural and urban schools so that the younger generations will save these mammals, said Muse”.
“They will continue to hunt them if there is no awareness. Conservation should be through education and the government should continue to support such initiatives. PNG is a biodiversity haven and outsiders are the dominant ones studying PNG. Papua New Guineans should do research and the government should support them to develop this potential, added Muse”.
Muse’s study in the United States is funded by the U.S. State Department through the East-West Center in Hawaii, the University of Missouri in St. Louis, the Harris World Ecology Center, and the St. Louis Zoo. These scholarships also support his family where his wife and son Tackie are currently with him in the United States.

* The writer was a recipient of the United-States South Pacific Scholarship Program in 2005 and studied at the East-West Center and the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, USA.


 

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